Kurt Warner is one of the stories of the upcoming Super Bowl for two reasons: 1) his is a compelling and heartwarming tale of both rags and the riches that followed them and 2) it’s a story that has already had a successful following so it’s easy to rehash and sell as a new product.
And, since everyone else is telling Kurt Warner stories, allow me to tell the only two that I have.
When I returned from Europe post college graduation, I was picked up at the St. Louis airport by my father and my buddy Jesse. It was an interesting time for me. I had no place to live save my parents’ house, no job, no money, about ten thousand dollars of credit card debt, no car and had recently broken up with my European girlfriend. Also, because Europe hates everything American that does not involve bashing our government, I had no idea what was going on in the National Football League.
I arrived in St. Louis on a Sunday at roughly 11 AM Central time. After I said my hellos to Jesse and Pops, we walked to Pops’ car where I sat in the back (Jesse called shotgun, knows Judo and well, my dad always liked him better than me anyway so I didn’t fight the issue).
As we drove down the highway, Pops informed me that we had to get to his favorite bar soon so we could get seats to the Rams game. I started laughing uncontrollably. The last time I had heard about the Rams was in a phone call from my father wherein I was informed that their QB Trent Green had been mauled by Rodney Harrison (then with the Chargers) in a preseason game. They were an annual joke and I was dead sure the fellas were messing with me.
“He doesn’t know?” Jesse asked Pops.
“I guess not,” said Pops.
“Hey Nate,” said Jesse. “You know who Kurt Warner is?”
“Seahawks cornerback, right? Kinda shitty.”
They both laughed heartily and then Jesse threw me a copy of a Sports Illustrated which had on it a picture of Kurt Warner and the title, “Who is this Guy” which couldn’t have been a more perfect title for me because I truly didn’t know who he was. So I read the article and learned all the good Christian, stock boy turned superstar shit that we’re all currently familiar with.
Anyway, the Rams won the Super Bowl that year with Warner as QB. And I was back in Tampa a few months after it happened, thank God and the company that paid a few grand to say goodbye to me.
My second Kurt Warner story, the one where I actually got to see him, involves four hungover dudes, Bloody Marys and anger.
After a night out partying with some old friends turned into an early morning partying with some old friends turned into a holy-shit-the-bars-are-open-again-we-gotta-go moment, I found myself sitting with three buddies in an Chili’s or an Applebee’s or some kind of casual dining restaurant. You ever been in a bar so early that the waitresses don’t have the chairs down off the bar from the night before? Well, we had. And that’s exactly how the place was when we started drinking. Eerily quiet. Us to wasted to talk. Chairs still up on the bars as if asking us if we worked there. Just a serene alcohol moment the likes of which only makes sense when you’re between 21 and 25. Any younger or older and you’re just sad. Fortunately, we were all 22 and so the moment fit.
Anyway, Kurt Warner walked in and asked for the manager, and out came some chubby looking balding dude who did not look above paying for sex (one of my ex-girlfriends calls the look of desperate, chubby bald guys “prostitutey” and I feel you needed to know that).
Warner politely asked the man for a thousand dollar gift certificate and explained that he needed it to be one page so he could hide it in the pages of a book as a gag gift. I thought it was interesting that Warner had a sense of humor and would have told him as much if I wasn’t the fourth guy down the bar from him (I was on the far side with my friend Mike on the near side—a few feet from him).
The manager came out after checking into the gift certificate matter and informed Mr. Warner that he was sorry, but their gift certificates only came in denominations of $50 and he couldn’t get them to make one that came any higher.
Warner acted exactly like I would have in this situation. He said, “Thought so. No problem. I’ll probably just see if any banks have any thousand dollar bills left.”
That’s nice and typical and good human behavior and all that but, well, Warner had just brought this town a Super Bowl, something that Mike felt should be factored in to the decision here.
“Now wait just a goddamn minute,” Mike yelled as he hopped off the stool.
First, Mike pointed at Warner, whose mouth was wide open and whose eyes were squinting in total disbelief.
“This man just won your town a fucking Super Bowl you fat waste of fucking space,” he pointed at the manager. “Now you get back into your fucking office and you call whoever you got to call and you get this man a gift certificate for a thousand fucking dollars on one fucking piece of paper or I curse you to hell!”
“Curse him?” I asked. “What, you practice Voodoo now?”
“I thought you were Presbyterian,” chimed in Matt.
“Fuck you guys,” yelled Mike. “And fuck this guy right here for not properly respecting a football hero.”
To which Kurt Warner replied, “Man, calm down, okay? It’s no big deal. You really need to relax. Just sit down. You’re scaring this guy.”
The manager was shaking quite adamantly (Mike stood 6’7” in shoes).
“Thanks for being the voice of reason, Kurt” said Matt (or maybe the other guy—I forget who the other guy was but it wasn’t me and it wasn’t Mike who said it so there’s that).
And with that, Kurt Warner walked out of our lives forever.
Anyway, I’m picking the Steelers (-7). God Boy has no chance against that defense.
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